The gender theory of "long COVID"

Or, how to make money from the managerial class

This morning I came across a Fox News article about a US Department of Health and Human Services report encouraging us all to be masking again, this time to make life better for people suffering from “long COVID”… whatever, exactly, that is supposed to be. And as you’ll see HHS doesn’t seem to really know what it is, though it did nevertheless manage to come up with a long list of how we should respond to this thing, whatever it is. What made me actually go look up the report, though, was a quotation in the article from our man-pretending-to-be-a-woman assistant secretary for health.

"Listening to and learning from the experiences of long COVID patients is essential to accelerating understanding and breakthroughs," said Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health.

Now you might say there is nothing wrong with that quotation as it stands alone (aside from the fact that it’s vague managerial blather), but combined with the article it did seem to me that I was hearing the language the Left employs per all its social theories, only now applied to what is supposed to be the more rigorous field of physical health. In a nutshell.

1. A new victim class has been created, people with “long COVID”.

2. The oppressors / victimizers are, especially, all y’all who won’t wear masks or get vaccinated, who make life so much worse for long COVID sufferers.

3. The way forward is to learn by listening to the “lived experiences” of the victims.

Yeah, that all sounds very familiar. So I looked through the entire HHS report and, indeed, saw obvious parallels with gender theory / transgenderism. We have a condition, transgenderism or long COVID, that we cannot define with any precision (there is no test to see if your boy is “really a girl”, there is no test for “long COVID”). The important thing, though, is to believe and affirm anyone who says they have that condition - the patient is always right. And then give them whatever support they say they need. Is it medicine or is it a gender studies class? Under management by the modern Left they’re the same thing. Everything must be understood through that same worldview lens.

BUT I HAVE TO SAY ONE MORE BIG THING. I started reading through the report because of what I said above. But when I finished, my biggest reaction was not “this is the language of critical theories”, but rather… there just isn’t much here. It’s mostly 80 pages of managerial-language fluff that reads a lot like it was put out by your local HR department. If you’re a decently smart person with just a vague idea of what “long COVID” is supposed to be, coupled with a sense of the way the managerial class talks and “what would HHS want me to say?”, you basically could have written this entire report. How much was, it looks like “Coforma”, paid to make this report? I bet ya absolute gobs of money. And you could’ve written it. That’s pretty good work if you can get it.

Anyway, if you’re curious, have a brief tour of the report.

Who wrote this thing?

Quickly here, but I did tilt my head to the side that the report begins with slides like the following:

Uh, you could’ve just said “person with Long COVID”. The rest already makes me feel like I’m reading a propaganda document. (But do notice the “we are the experts on ourselves” language. The patient is always right.¹)

What is long COVID anyway?

Especially since I was curious myself what long COVID is “officially” supposed to be, I was actually interested to read this section.

Alas it was a letdown, they don’t really know, so what you get is… long COVID as defined by people who say they have long COVID.

But wait a minute, how do you keep talking about a condition, and sound smart, when you aren’t really even sure what the condition is? Well that’s easy, break it into sub-categories and create a graph looking thing!

Whatever, exactly, long COVID is, surely it comes in “more mild” and “more severe” varieties. And surely those people who have it, whatever it is, are sometimes given more support from others, and sometimes given less support from others. And you know what? The people with the mild cases and the most support, they’re the best off, and the people with the severe cases and the least support, they’re the worst off. Excellent point, have a million dollars.

Welcome to your first day in the HR department, Sally, could you make us a slide about this thing you know nothing about for our new online training? Again, you could’ve pretty much written this entire report by yourself with just a vague idea of what “long COVID” is supposed to be, and knowledge about how the managerial class likes to talk to itself.

The language of critical theories

I won’t keep grabbing screenshots for you, but language familiar from critical theories was all over the place.

Page 8, this research was necessary “To ensure the lived experiences and perspectives of people impacted by Long COVID are integrated” into solutions.

Page 9 points out that people of color are more likely to be affected by Long COVID, and that it is more common in bisexual and trans people “due to lower access to health care and stigma regarding their gender or sexuality”.

Page 19, one of the people quoted to define Long COVID says people “want a definition that reflects their own experiences, but not at the expense of others. This reflects a sense of solidarity that’s strong within the Long COVID community.”

Page 30 talks about the importance of people seeing a “health care provider who believes them”. The next page talks about the importance that someone “experiences minimal wait time before the first appointment”… which is just another example of, anybody could’ve written this thing. “Seeing a doctor sooner is better than seeing one later.” Great point again, here is another million dollars for you.

Page 38, “With the implementation of all of these recommendations, efforts should be made to direct resources towards marginalized and historically-underserved areas and communities, including communities of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, disabled individuals, older adults, and those living in rural or tribal regions.” Well just copy and paste that into everything, you’re pretty safe using that language about anything with the progressive managerial class so… have another million dollars.

The recommendations

I could keep going, but the report ends with recommendations… but what recommendations can you make as regards how to respond to a very vague condition? Well again, you could’ve written this document. The major recommendations include.

1. Raise public awareness. And did you know that some people experience especially hostile interactions because of ableism, xenophobia, racism, and ageism?

2. Create resources for support groups. Spend more money on mental and behavioral health care.

3. Creating training for employers to build awareness and empathy. This section spends a lot of time talking about people with long COVID as people with a disability and reasonable accommodations must be provided.

4. Increase access to assistance programs for people with long COVID.

5. Increase the capacity of healthcare systems specifically for the treatment of long COVID.

6. Make it easier for people with long COVID to navigate the healthcare system.

7. Provide better training for doctors about long COVID.

8. Spend more money on research into long COVID.

9. Support advocacy efforts led by people with long COVID (complete with a call for more DEI funding!)

You could have written this report.

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1. It probably should be said at some point that, in fact, I am fully in favor of listening closely to patients, fully believe that they sometimes understand their condition better than their doctor, and I am open to the idea of a virus having long-term effects on someone. But the fact that I believe all of those things are true is not going to stop me from calling out what reads like an intentionally vague grifting campaign. Of course, error prefers to mix itself with as much truth as possible as it advances.